The state of Kansas does something very much like this, where statewide funding is responsible for the largest share and local funding is a supplement. (Of course, we’ve had multiple legal disputes around both equity and adequacy; the statelost a major battle in our supreme court last month.)
My first job out of college was for IBM, a subcontractor writing course material for marketing products on the internet. My IBM boss, once I’d written a thorough course full of detailed student notes, made me remove all the student notes, because if the notes were too thorough, other departments would only send one employee to take the course and to bring the notes back to their department, and she wouldn’t be able to bill them enough.
I’ve never harbored any illusions about the efficiency of the market, or the competence of private sector managers, since then.
And why are vouchers the right way to do that rather than charter schools?
Can you tell me exactly how your voucher program would work or don’t you think the details matter?
Neither of these are an argument for vouchers. They are maybe an argument for school choice.
It’s like you keep saying we all need to eat blueberries because a plant-based diet is healthier. And people keep pointing out problems with blueberries in particular–that they are allergic to them, that they are more expensive than other options, that they don’t store well–and you keep coming back with “but meat is unhealthy! We need to eat more plants!”. Okay. But that doesn’t make blueberries the solution.
In the same way, there may be some benefit to different types of school choice, but vouchers, quite particularly, seem to be the most problematic way to deal with that–they only help people that have additional resources, they put the state in the position of supplementing religious education, and they mean spending the state’s money in programs with little to no oversight.
There are tons of exciting experiments in school choice going on right now. In places with reasonably dense populations, it’s more and more the thing that you can pick from any public school in your district–including specialized schools, several charter schools, and some sort of on-line homeschooling option.
As far as crazy, zero-tolerance bullshit, please remember that it’s the crazy stories that make the news–and even then you hear half the story. Here a 1st grader brought a loaded gun to school–an actual loaded gun–and they didn’t punish her at all, though the police did investigate the parents and I assume someone was charged with something. Schools can be flexible and reasonable–but that doesn’t make the Recreational Outrage Circuit.
And in other cases, there’s more going on than you know. The kid suspended for “making a finger gun” may well have been suspended for repeated aggressive, unwelcome behavior toward other kids. There may have been parent conferences and time-outs and any number of other things. None of that makes the news.
Finally, if we are going to make the voucher the size of the marginal cost of education, it needs to be the marginal cost of that actual child, or the median variable cost, NOT the average variable cost. Kids with personal aides and in small group settings all day cost a tremendous amount, and are probably the least likely to leave. Average Variable Cost Kid would be taking that kid’s money. Finally, if Actual Marginal Cost Kid is involved in special programs, the school he is going to needs to have that same program, or they don’t get that portion of his funding. If the kid cost the district an extra $450 because he was in sports, the new school better have a funded sports program if they expect to get that money.
Honest to god, I’d love to see how much vouchers were even for, if you calculated them that way.
Here’s the thing- I dont have kids, but I still have to pay for public schools.
However, I have a say in how those schools are run, and thus how my tax dollars are spent. I can write or vote out my public officials, or School boards- and in fact I have gotten together with other and we did vote in a friend into a local school board.
And I sat on the County Civil Grand Jury for a year and* personally* reviewed their policies and budget.
I have *no voice in a parochial school. If they want to teach that evolution is a lie and even that there is One true Religion, they can- and do. *
If you dont like the local public schools there are indeed Charter schools.
And no one is stopping you from a private school. Just dont spend my taxes on a place that teaches evolution is a lie, or that a woman’s place is secondary to mans.
Here’s the thing about vouchers, and why they aren’t the magic bullet so many conservatives think they are.
Private schools don’t have to follow all the rules public schools do. As mentioned, they can include instruction (and indoctrination) on religious views. They don’t have to take students they don’t want, such as the low-performing or special needs students. They can do this because they are private, funded by tuition or grants/support from churches or philanthropists.
Once they take vouchers, they are now taking what is, by all rights, public money. I don’t think they should be allowed to do that unless they have to follow the same rules public schools do.
It’s pure apples and oranges here. Do private schools tend to get better results? Sure, but they’d better, since they don’t have the low-performing/special needs/troublemaking students. It’s not a fair comparison at all.
Public schools have to take every student. Bring in vouchers, and you’ve started a death spiral for many public schools as the “better” students flee to the private schools, leaving the publics with an increasing percentage of challenging students coupled with a loss of funding.
The answer is to improve our public schools. That’s a huge question, I know, and I don’t have the answer, but I do know vouchers ain’t it.
That doesn’t seem relevant. No one is saying the market is perfect. People are saying at least in a competitive marketplace you have options and voting with your dollars does make a difference.
Except, they are our dollars, not your dollars. Why should you have the right to take my contribution and use it to vote as you see fit?
If it pleases the crown, may I keep my own money that you have already taxed so that I can pay for the education of mine own child?
That’s the way we do things in many other areas.
[ul]
[li]We take taxpayer dollars and make them available to Medicare and Medicaid recipients. Those recipients decide which doctors and hospitals to go to, and your contribution is used to pay for which doctors and hospitals they choose.[/li][li]And there’s this law called the ACA (commonly “Obamacare”) under which your contribution is used to subsidize people’s health insurance purchases. Most people have a choice about what insurance to buy, and your contribution is used as the buyer sees fit.[/li][li]Section 8 housing vouchers, the primary means of providing housing to the poor. The poor decide which apartment they want to rent, and your contribution is used as the poor person sees fit.[/li][li]College and University education. Millions of students decide which college or university to attend, and your contribution, in the form of subsidies and loans, is used as they see fit.[/li][li]Food Stamps. Your contribution is provided to poor people, and used to purchase the food that they see fit.[/li][li]Etc…[/li][/ul]
There is an obvious difference between how we provide K-12 education in this country and how we provide almost everything else. Nobody thinks that the government should completely own and operate 95% of the food industry, for instance, and that only the super-rich should be able to afford non-government food. Instead private industry does almost all the production. For those who can’t afford on their own, we give them food stamps, put a few rules on how those food stamps can be used, and then let the poor people decide what food they most want to buy. The same for health care, housing, and many other things. Why would we not approach K-12 education the same way that we approach those things?
Which could be because education is significantly different from almost everything else. Some things are not nails.
You say that both public schools and private schools have the same costs for educating the same number of students. What basis do you have for making that claim?
It’s a widely known fact, at least among policy wonks, that it costs the government far more to build anything than it costs private enterprise. Say that the public school system and a private system are both building a school for 500 kids with 20 classrooms, brick walls, floors, roofs, cafeteria, gym, and so forth. The public school is going to cost far more, because public construction projects have to follow a bunch of government rules for contracting: unionized labor for certain things, wages must be above a certain arbitrary number, affirmative action, certain percent of contracts must go to businesses owned by women and minorities, etc… etc… Private schools and private enterprises can ignore all this dumb $%!& and just build the building as well and cheaply as possible.
Private schools have another advantage: they can focus on education. Drive by a public high school and you’re likely to see three football fields, four baseball fields, eight tennis courts, three running tracks, etc… Private schools are allowed to value education more than throwing a ball around, so they are more likely to actually spend money on things that matter.
“Our sources have said …” What basis do you have for making that claim?
Cite, please?
Oh, what the heck. You’re just plain wrong in most cases. Let’s take, for example, Ohio’s Educational Choice Scholarship Program. Here are the rules:
Ohio’s “EdChoice” scholarship program, enacted in 2005 and launched in 2006, offers private school vouchers to K–12 students who are assigned to “low-performing” public schools. Participating private schools are required to accept the voucher as full tuition for students whose families are at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level. Learn more about this program’s funding, eligibility and regulations on this page.
So this voucher program is available only to students from families earning below 200% of the poverty line, and from schools that the government classifies as lousy, which in most cases is schools that poor students attend. And similar rules are in place for the majority of voucher programs across the country. So how exactly are they are subsidy for wealthy parents?
Two words: online education. School vouchers are great, but frankly when it comes to reforming education in this country, most reformers think too small. They’re still stuck in the rut of believing that every child should spend 8 hours a day, 180 days a year, for 12 years in an ugly, blocky, depressing building called a “school”. Why should children be tormented like that? If kids can learn more by taking part in online courses, why shouldn’t that option be pursued? Millions of children from elementary school to Ph.D. programs are already taking online courses. Why shouldn’t governments identify the best online options and pay for children to take those online courses?
Let’s say your kid is in a small, rural school with only 50 12th graders. With a class that small, the school probably won’t be able to offer AP Statistics or third-year Latin. But with online education, your kid could take statistics and Latin from an Ivy League professor. Local governments should absolutely pay for such things.
What? You are contradicting yourself. How are they yours or somewhat arrogantly “ours” and not mine? Why should you have the right to take MY contribution?
Cite? Indeed that is the opinion of some, but it’s a damn opinion, not a fact.
Sure they can build it cheaper- but employing substandard labor and not giving a fuck about safety.
Ever hear of Notre dame football? USC football? Private schools also spend a lot of $$ on sports as sports bring in those donations.
Can you keep your tax money to build your own army, your own roads?
And yet there is competition in the US’s world class university system. Hmm.
Some things are natural monopolies. Like utilities and the roads. Education is not a natural monopoly. Cite. The US university system. The US private school system.
Are Yale and Harvard as good as State U or State A and M?